I'm a horrible writer so I brought Elisa along to write everything down. Yay. You are saved, you're welcome.

We started off the day and the trip by waking up around 4. We were eager to beat the heat in any way we could so we tip-toed around the hotel bringing bags to the bottom of the creaky stairs to the picnic table by the entrance to attach to our bikes once everything had been packed up. We had decided the night before that we were going to do this trip right and start properly in Mexico, so after we took photos with the sun just peaking over the horizon, symbolizing the start of our new life for the foreseeable future, we pushed off and slogged our heavy, unfamiliar bikes 3 miles south to the border. There, we went through what could only be described as a gentrified border crossing. It had nice, new buildings, fashionable So-Cal style xeriscaping and wide open pedestrian-friendly sidewalks protected from the cars. We were sheparded into the Mexican border security office after a well-meaning American border patrol officer stopped us and made sure we had passports because, duh, we needed them to get back in the country. She said that many bikers got stuck in Mexico that way, which I’m not sure we believe. Nonetheless, Ziven got to use his Spanish when the Mexican security officers asked us to remove all of our bags, yes, the ones we had just lovingly fastened to our bikes not 30 minutes prior. Ziven bargained with them and we only had to remove the panniers and fork bags and, thankfully, not unscrew and remove the entire pannier rack. We fumbled around while the officers stared at us and I struggled to keep the bike upright while undoing all the straps with my gloves on. After the bags were scanned by their machines, we repeated the process and put them alllll back on. We then tried to pose by the “Welcome to Mexico” sign but a grumpy old officer told Ziven in Spanish that we were not allowed to take pictures in this area. His younger counterpart said we could, but we were pushed out of the secure area by the grumpy old man and had to trade our picture perfect photo-op for a photo in front of a liquor store - the view we got after a single step into the country. After we got an embarrassed Mexican middle schooler to take our picture while the boys in her class giggled at us and mocked our outfits, we followed the students back across the border and away from the dirt roads and immediately to a different cityscape in Mexico. The students, it appeared, walked across the border every morning and then were bused some 70 miles to the nearest “city” to attend American schools. Amongst the rush of many many children, even more school buses, and chattering folks everywhere, even at 6 in the morning, we joined tyhe line to cross back into the US. Ziven went first and explained that we had just had our bags screened and, thankfully, they did not make us go through security but waved our bikes through. I got a lot more questions asked of me about travels abroad, probably to check my stamps, and then the officer asked what we were up to. I proudly said that we were biking to Canada and enjoyed the way the words felt coming out of my mouth. I would repeat them so many times in the coming days. The border patrol officer asked if I was being coerced into doing this trip and, not sure if he was joking or not, I said no and giggled at Ziven on the other side of the border.

Once we cleared the obstacles that consisted of children on the sidewalk not making space for bikes, cars on the roads not making space for bikes, and more, we hopped back on the highway we had just come down and, 20 minutes later, we were making positive progress for the day! The route for the day was to turn onto the main highway heading directly due west and thennnnn arrive at the destination… We had a rough go of it despite the lack of turning and almost overabundance of road. We were unused to heavy loaded bikes. Ziven had forgotten to fill his bottom water bottle and we did not anticipate how thirsty and hot we would be in, well, the desert. In our eyes, the first day being only 50 road miles was an easy start but we both hadn’t biked consistently in almost a month, had not slept very much the night before, were still exhausted from the long road trip, were not heat acclimated, nor altitude acclimated, as we started at an unanticipated 4000 feet, to add insult to injury. Needless to say, the day kicked our butt. We would find out a few days later that my brakes were dragging this entire time, which would explain why it always felt like I would pedal as hard as I could only to get dropped by Ziven as soon as he stopped holding back. We stopped in every shade we could find - aka not much. There were a few bushes that we squeezed under and one godsent silo near a sad looking paddock with a white horse (perhaps the spirit of Caballo Blanco?) who came to investigate the weird creatures peeing and eating and using up his shade. We got respect from the border patrol officers waiting alongside the road doing who knows what near the miles and miles and miles of Trump’s wall that we paralleled. On either side of the road were sandy ditches or frontage roads and huge tires and chains. We learned later that the border patrol would drag the tires through the sand to wipe it clean so they could see footprints and pursue migrants. Sentry towers loomed along the road and Ziven stopped to take a picture of one for his friend, who worked at the government contractor that made them. After a while the heat really started getting to me and every stroke was painful, despite it only being 10am. We stopped often to rest my butt and eat and drink, though the sun soon shooed us on. Not having a bike computer, I relied on Ziven to give me the data and after a few disappointing moments where I thought we had gone much further, we saw a, well not a town, but some sort of civilization rising up from the monotony of the desert. Like a mirage, I assumed it was way too close to be our final destination, Hachita, and, given that we were at mile 44, despaired that we would have to go up the hill that stretched out before us. Instead, as the civilization loomed closer, the miles ticked on and we entered Hachita as the bike computer chimed 50 miles.

Knowing from our stop the day before at this exact spot, we went to the one and only store/sign of life from the abandoned and once dearly-loved town and talked to the cashier at the convenience store. We paid for our night at the Hachita community center and got the code for the lock box on the door before stocking up on cold drinks and snacks, chugging the former. We went to check out the community center, which is widely touted as a godsend amongst bikers, though mostly by southbounders who maybe have lower standards by the time they reach their last night before finishing. The community center is a simple gymnasium-type cinder block building with a kitchen, a bathroom, a stage, some tables, and several cots. The walls of the interior were white but most of the cinder blocks were dedicated to a member of the town who had either died or moved away. One of the walls had some historical information including a map of the CDT, a guestbook that we signed, the town charter, some pictures of prominent community members, and a sad drawing of what the city planners had thought Hachita would become, with many neat neighborhoods and a bustling mainstreet that had whittled down through the years into a single store and a few decrepit houses. Nonetheless, the building was cool inside and we set up our sleeping bags on the cots, ate some more snacks, and settled down to watch TV, instead of accidentally falling asleep. We were woken up from our light slumber by a biker barging through the door and talking to his companion in a loud voice. This was Brent and his riding partner was Sonya. Brent was 71 and from British Columbia. The trip was his 70th birthday present to himself and he was very proud of his bike and its weight. When I tried to lift the bike, I almost overbalanced and he unveiled to us that it was in the 85 pound range. Sonjya was in her early 60s from Switzerland and had found Brent on a forum of other Divide bikers looking for companions for the trip. They had both agreed to pack such that they could split up if the alliance didn’t end up working out and Sonya had packed almost as much as Brent. They made coffee while they rested and Sonya pulled out what must have been a 3 pound bag of Nescafe Gold, which she claimed you couldn’t get in the States and was essential for the trip. She offloaded an entire honey bear into the community center’s kitchen cupboard and Brent similarly tried to give us some dried meat, some deli meat, and a sweater, of which he had packed 2 more. They also shared with us some of the Swiss chocolate that Sonya had brought and what they should have gobbled down before they left. It must have been another 3 pounds of chocolate. Sonya had an electric toothbrush. AND a normal toothbrush. Brent had a coffeepot. A full blown iron coffee pot. All the while they were giving us this tour, Brent was chatting away, never letting anyone get a word in edgewise. He would also call over to Sonya and make sure she understood what we said. When she said she understood, he would make her repeat it. They were such an incompatible pair it was hard to take them seriously. When Brent went to the bathroom, Sonya lost no time in saying how she didn’t think she could go much further with him, given that they had had to stop every mile because his back hurt, and they were going too slow. They came into the community center at about 1 and decided to have a “siesta” until it “cooled off” at 4:30 or 5pm. Not wanting to spoil their plans and already slightly eager to be rid of them, we did not acknowledge that at 4:30pm it was likely to be the hottest it would be all day - somewhere in the mid 90s. After they drained our social battery for the rest of the afternoon, they did in fact leave at 4:45 (they had started getting ready to leave at 4). We wished them well and watched them pedal off into the blazing heat while we went to the store to buy more food. Later in the evening, another two bikers tramped into the community center. This time, they were southbounders who had started last year and wanted to finish the last leg from Grants to Antelope Wells. We chit chatted for a bit, they realized Ziven had actually MADE the bike not just picked out the components, and we had our dinners separately. Ziven and I then made our last trip to the convenience store to get ice cream and sunscreen. Yes, we ventured out into the desert without sunscreen. And they didn't have any. Darn. We ate our ice cream on the stoop of the community center as the sunset over the highway and the desert landscape. As the light faded from the community center, we warned the other folks that we would be waking up really early and apologized for our noise. One of them said that he thought we were really amazing for doing this trip as a couple and how he wished he could do something like this with his wife. With that sweet sentiment in our minds, we drifted off to sleep on our cots, pleasantly cool for once in the day.